City guide · Jiangsu
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
I came to Zhenjiang mainly for Xijin Ferry. The Tang poet Zhang Hu lodged one night at the small hill tower above the old crossing, looked out over the Yangtze, and wrote: at the ferry crossing by Jinling, a traveller's night is sorrow enough — the tide falls in the moonlit river, and two or three sparks of light are Guazhou. Walking into it felt like walking into an old film, a thousand years in one glance.
A traveller's note, 'A Thousand Years in One Glance, Xijin Ferry'
Zhenjiang is a city with a sweeping sense of history and an unhurried way of living. There is natural scenery here, there is depth, and there is the foreign architecture on top of it. I had done the famous three hills years ago; this time I went to Nanshan and the old ferry street, and found that the city is not only beautiful — what it carries underneath is something else.
A traveller's note, 'Clouds Rising on the Half Hill'
Zhenjiang is a city of hills and one ferry landing, and almost everything China remembers about it happened on those four pieces of ground. The abbot Fahai dug gold out of Jinshan and became the villain of the White Snake legend. Sun Quan stage-managed his sister's marriage on Beigu Hill and lost both the bride and the army. Xin Qiji stood on the same hill and asked who would still vouch for an old man's appetite. And the poet Zhang Hu spent a night in a lodging house above the ferry and wrote four lines that every Chinese schoolchild learns.
It sits where the Grand Canal meets the Yangtze, on the south bank, which is why it was fought over for three thousand years. The name is either a prayer or a threat depending on which story you take: either a lucky word bolted onto the river's name because the low north bank kept flooding, or a Song court naming the place that guards the crossing. Either way it has been in use for over 800 years, and the older names — Yi, Zhufang, Dantu, Jingkou, Runzhou — are the ones you meet in the poems.
What you find now is compact and unhurried: a working temple on a hill, an island of calligraphy, a free museum in a former British consulate, a riverside road the city walks at dusk, and an old ferry street given over to restaurants and inns without having been turned into a film set. It is one of the least crowded historical cities on the Yangtze.
It is also a remarkably cheap city to eat in. Order a bowl of pot-lid noodles, a plate of crystal pork, a dish of shredded ginger and a splash of the local vinegar, and you have had the city's breakfast for less than the price of a ticket to Jinshan.
Zhenjiang
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Jinshan's monastery is built so densely up the slope that from any angle you see the buildings and not the mountain — the local phrase is the temple wrapping the hill. Inside are forty-odd sites, each with a story attached: Fahai's cave, the White Dragon cave, the first spring under heaven, Furong Tower, the Jade Belt Bridge, and the legend of the white snake flooding the temple.
Temple gates face south. Jinshan's faces west, and the reason given is a good one: the south gate kept catching fire, so the abbot called in a geomancer, who decided it had offended the southern gate of heaven and the Jade Emperor was punishing it. The gate was turned round, and the temple has faced west ever since.
Xijin Ferry street is barely five hundred metres long and holds Tang and Song paving, Yuan and Ming stone pagodas and late-Qing pavilions stacked on the same slope, with the inscriptions of famous men still legible over the stone gateways. It is the densest, best-preserved group of monuments in the city.
Jiaoshan sits in the Yangtze facing Xiangshan across the water — ten thousand rivers flow east, one island stands in the middle. Its stele forest and cliff carvings earned it the name mountain of calligraphy, and the Inscription for a Buried Crane, cut 1,500 years ago and attributed to Wang Xizhi, is a national protected monument.
Beigu Hill lies across the great river with steep rock walls and a position that made it a fortress, and the Three Kingdoms made it famous. Every pavilion and path carries a story about the Sun–Liu marriage, Sweet Dew Temple crowns the peak in the temple-caps-the-hill style, and the route ends at the Lingyun Pavilion and the grave of Taishi Ci.
Every local can recite them: vinegar that never spoils, pork jelly eaten as a snack rather than a course, and a noodle pot with a small lid floating in it. Zhenjiang vinegar is 130-odd years old, gets better the longer it is kept and never turns — hence the saying that if you have not tasted the three wonders, your trip is incomplete.
Suggested routes
The compressed version the local guide prints, and it does work if you start early.
Jinshan first, and give it the morning — the temple, Fahai's cave, the spring and the climb to Cishou pagoda. Go up the pagoda early; the stair is narrow, dim and crowded at weekends.
Jiaoshan after lunch — bus 104 or 123 runs straight from Jinshan. Take the ferry over, walk the stele forest and the cliff carvings, then Beigu Hill in the late afternoon for the river view. Finish on Xijin Ferry, which is at its best as the light goes.
Stops: JinshanJiaoshanBeigu HillXijin Ferry
The version worth taking: the hills on day one, Nanshan and the museum on day two.
Start at Xijin Ferry early while it is empty, then walk or bus to Jinshan for the morning. Lunch near Jinshan, or on Jiangxian Street if you want river fish.
Jiaoshan in the afternoon for the carvings and the ferry ride, Beigu Hill as the light drops, and back to Xijin Ferry for dinner — the street is full of restaurants and it is a different place after dark.
Stops: Xijin FerryJinshanJiaoshanBeigu Hill
Nanshan in the morning: Zhaoyin temple, Zenghua Pavilion, the reading terrace, bamboo and springs, and it opens until 21:00 so there is no rush.
Then the museum on the Yuntai slope — free, but closed Mondays, so check the day before you plan around it. Finish with the evening walk on Changjiang Road along the Yangtze, and dinner at Dashikou night market.
Stops: NanshanZhenjiang MuseumChangjiang Road
The classic Jiangsu loop, with Zhenjiang as the second stop.
Start at Jiangsu's capital: Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum, Xuanwu Lake, the Qinhuai river and the Confucius temple.
Stops: Zhongshan LingXuanwu LakeQinhuai River
Climb the three hills and look down the Yangtze with the taste of Zhenjiang vinegar in the air: Jinshan, Jiaoshan, Beigu Hill.
Stops: JinshanJiaoshanBeigu Hill
Cross to Yangzhou — by the car ferry from Guazhou if you can. Daming Temple, Slender West Lake, Ge Garden, Wenchang Pavilion.
Stops: Daming TempleSlender West LakeGe Garden
Finish in Suzhou: Pingjiang Road, the Humble Administrator's Garden, Tiger Hill and Hanshan Temple.
Stops: Pingjiang RoadHumble Administrator's GardenTiger Hill
Sights
The temple that wraps the hill
Named for the gold the Tang monk Fahai is said to have found when he opened the hill. It was once an island in the middle of the river, called a lotus in the stream. The temple's architecture is unique in China — the buildings rise so densely that you see the monastery and not the mountain — and inside are more than forty sites, each with a myth or a legend: the white snake flooding the temple, Liang Hongyu drumming the army against the Jin, Yue Fei dreaming at Jinshan.
Tip The stair up Cishou pagoda is narrow, badly lit and packed on public holidays — hold the rail and go early. Note that the temple gate faces west rather than south; the geomancer's story is the one everybody tells.
Three Kingdoms, on a cliff
One of the three hills, named for how it lies across the great river with its rock walls steep and its position secure. It is famous because of the Three Kingdoms: every pavilion, path and rock on it attaches to the story of the Sun–Liu marriage. Sweet Dew Temple, said to have been founded in 265, crowns the peak in the temple-caps-the-hill style, and it is small but its reputation is not.
Tip Plan the route before you go up — the order above runs with the hill rather than against it, and doing it backwards means a lot of doubling back. Late afternoon is the time, when the light is down the river.
Free, and genuinely old
A street at the foot of Yuntai Hill in the west of the city, five hundred metres long and holding a thousand years: Tang and Song paving, Yuan and Ming stone pagodas, late-Qing pavilions, stone gateways built up the slope with the inscriptions of famous men still legible over them. It is the densest and best-preserved concentration of monuments in Zhenjiang — the city's cultural vein, as the local phrase goes.
Tip Come at dusk and stay for dinner — the street changes completely once the lanterns are lit, and it is the single best free evening in the city. From the railway station take bus 2 or 17 to Heping Road and walk; from Dashikou East take 29, 14 or 9 to Yingjiang Road.
The calligraphy hill
Named for Jiao Guang, who hid on the hill in the Eastern Han, and standing in the Yangtze opposite Xiangshan — ten thousand rivers flow east, one island holds the middle. It is called the mountain of calligraphy for its stele forest and cliff carvings. The Inscription for a Buried Crane is 1,500 years old, attributed to Wang Xizhi, and is a national key protected monument.
Tip The ferry is included in the ticket and is half the reason to come. In late September and October the osmanthus festival runs with calligraphy and seal-carving shows, flower arranging, lantern riddles and osmanthus food; the international calligraphy festival follows on 18–20 October.
The scholars' retreat
The collective name for Zhaoyin, Huanghe, Jia and Jiuhua hills south of the city, made up of the Zhaoyin, Bamboo Grove, Helin and Wenyuan areas. From the Six Dynasties to the Ming this was where scholars and officials lived and wrote, and the sites they left — Zhaoyin Temple, Zenghua Pavilion, the reading terrace — sit among bamboo, springs and deep valleys.
Tip This is the quiet one, and the one to do if the three hills have worn you out. It stays open until 21:00, so it makes a good late-afternoon walk rather than a morning commitment.
Free, closed Mondays
On the slope of Yuntai Hill, next to Xijin Ferry and looking north over the Yangtze, in one of the earliest British consulates built in China. It is a hundred years old, built into the hill above the river, and it holds five permanent exhibitions: Wu-culture bronzes excavated in Zhenjiang, ceramics through the ages, gold and silver, craft objects, and paintings of the Jingjiang school.
Tip Do not turn up on a Monday — this is the single most common wasted journey in the city. It is a ten-minute walk from Xijin Ferry, so pair the two.
Taoist mountain, 40 km out
The birthplace of the Shangqing school of Taoism, called the first blessed place and the eighth grotto-heaven, with the praise of being a house of immortals under Qin and Han and a home of chancellors under Liang and Tang. Nine peaks, eighteen springs, twenty-six caves and twenty-eight pools, and the largest statue of Laozi in the world. The three palaces and five temples include Jiuxiao Wanfu Palace and Yuanfu Wanning Palace.
Tip The incense season runs from the 24th of the twelfth lunar month to the 18th of the third — three months when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come and the mountain is like a festival. Buy incense at the mountain gate, not from the sellers at the ticket office; bring small coins to leave at each statue; and Taoist salutes use the left hand over the right, not the Buddhist gesture. Touch the character for blessing at Yuanfu Wanning Palace on the way down.
Magnolias in April
In Jurong, 32 km from Zhenjiang, main peak 437.2 m. Named for the yellow flowers that covered it in spring, then renamed when the Liang monk Baozhi came to build a hermit and preach. Its thirty-six peaks are said to fold like lotus petals around a temple hidden in the folds. Two dragons, four pools, seven terraces, nine caves and twelve springs, and a sea of mist that stands comparison with Huangshan.
Tip April is the month — the magnolia festival runs then and it is the best time on the hill. Qianlong came six times and left a line praising the depths of Baohua.
Food
The dish that gives the city one of its three wonders. A small wooden lid is floated in the pot so the broth cannot boil over but can still breathe, and the noodles come out neither hard nor soft. The story is that a woman dropped the lid of her soup pot into the noodles by accident and the result was better than what she had been making.
Also called crystal pork trotter: pale skin, red meat, each slice glistening. Locals eat it the way other places eat toast — into a teahouse at dawn, a pot of strong tea, a dish of finely cut ginger, and the pork dipped in vinegar. That is exactly what pork-not-a-dish means.
Two hundred years old as a Zhenjiang speciality, famous along the whole Shanghai–Nanjing line and beyond. Made with crab oil and pork: small, beautifully shaped, thin-skinned, full of soup and filling. Eat them with Zhenjiang vinegar and ginger, which improves the taste and cuts the richness.
The local version of the Jiangnan classic — crab meat and pork chopped and shaped into great balls, cooked without dark soy, hence clear-braised, and because they are big and round, lion's heads. Done in a casserole, brought to the table hot under a leaf of greens; lift the greens and there they are.
Baihua is a sweet, fragrant Zhenjiang wine, and braising pork belly in it is one of the city's best dishes: the meat is roasted first, then simmered in a casserole with the wine worked through it, ending golden, soft and strongly aromatic.
Jiangxian Street at the foot of Jinshan exists for river fish. The three fish of Zhenjiang are what you order there, and deboned silver carp head is the other dish to ask for — a big head split, boned, and braised with wine and rich stock.
A hundred and thirty years old, and famous for colour, aroma, sourness, body and concentration. It dresses cold plates, glazes vegetables, cooks fish and stews chicken — it lifts flavour, removes fishiness, cuts grease and wakes the appetite. It improves with keeping and never spoils, which is the first of the three wonders.
The city's busiest night food cluster: fried dried tofu, stinky tofu, five-spice tea eggs, chicken soup, duck-blood vermicelli, beef in a clay pot, cold noodles, tofu pudding, lamb skewers, squid on a hot plate, pancakes. The range changes with the seasons, so there is something new most weeks.
Where to eat
The old name
The city's old-established house and the one everybody is sent to. Large, bright, old-fashioned rooms, and the two dishes it is known for are the crystal pork and the crab-roe soup dumplings. Locals argue about which kitchen does the best pork and generally settle on this one.
Noodles, properly presented
Inside the Xijin Ferry historic district, and a cut above the average noodle shop — it was opened in 2010 to do for pot-lid noodles what a tasting room does for wine, and it has served visitors from all over China since. Quiet, and the noodles are the real thing.
Where locals queue
A well-known Chaozhou and Zhejiang kitchen with a strong reputation for value, and busy enough that you may have to wait for a table at peak hours. The braised lion's head is the signature — the portion is large and the meat is genuinely tender.
River fish
Not a restaurant but a street, at the foot of Jinshan and built entirely around river fish. The three fish of Zhenjiang are what it is for, along with deboned silver carp head. The largest house on it is Jinshuiwan; Bishi Rong River-Fresh Restaurant is the other famous one, and Jinshan Fishery Village is a good third choice.
Cheapest eating in town
A student street, which means cheap and good, with sit-down places inside and stalls outside. Go here if you want to eat what the city actually eats at the prices the city pays.
Where to stay
The practical base
The city's commercial, cultural and tourist centre, on the main Zhongshan Road, about five minutes by car from the railway and coach stations, with buses from the door to Jinshan, Jiaoshan, Beigu Hill and Nanshan. Hotels of every grade, and the busiest concentration around ¥200.
On the old ferry street
A brick-and-timber Ming-Qing style Jiangnan house on the thousand-year-old Xijin Ferry street, at the foot of the slope and by the river — described as a haven in the city's forest of hills. Surrounded by open historical sites, and it is the cheapest bed in the most interesting part of town.
Chain, central
On Zhongshan Road in the middle of the commercial district, five minutes by car from the railway and coach stations, with buses from the door to every one of the hills. Unromantic and extremely convenient.
Chain, by the shops
Central, next to the post office building and opposite the big RT-Mart, close to the railway and coach stations and well served by buses. Opposite-side value to the Super 8 at much the same price.
The top of the range
A landmark European-style building in the busy Dashikou commercial centre, renovated to five-star with Wu-culture details worked into the design. Ten minutes by car from the railway and coach stations, Xijin Ferry a short walk away, and Changjiang Road — the city's riverfront — close enough to stroll.
Getting around
Zhenjiang has no airport. You fly to Nanjing Lukou International, Sunan Shuofang at Wuxi, or Changzhou Benniu, and there is a direct coach from Lukou into the city for ¥55. Given how close Nanjing is, Lukou is the usual choice.
Two stations. Zhenjiang station sits on the Shanghai–Nanjing line and, since July 2010, all high-speed trains leave from the south square while the classic expresses use the old north square. Zhenjiang South is an elevated station on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed line about 5 km from the centre, roughly an hour from Shanghai and five hours from Beijing.
Two coach stations, close to each other and near the railway station: the main terminal has more departures and a wider spread of times, while the south station is a little closer to the centre. Both are fine; check which one your service leaves from.
The cheapest bus system in the delta: ¥1 for any single journey under 15 km, half price with a card, and a further ¥0.50 off if you transfer within 30 minutes — which can bring a second trip to nothing. Cards are issued at the bus company head office, the office west of 359 Hospital, Jiangda hub, the Jinshan Park stop and Yingjiangqiao.
Flagfall ¥8 for the first 3 km, ¥1.8 for the fourth kilometre, then ¥2.7 a kilometre beyond 4 km. In the new district the flagfall is ¥5 for 2 km, ¥1.8 for the third and fourth, and ¥2.7 a kilometre after that with a 50% empty-running surcharge. Complaints on 0511-84447222.
The car ferry between Guazhou and Zhenjiang takes foot passengers, and while crossing by the Runyang bridge is quicker and smoother, crossing the Yangtze on a boat is the better memory. It is also the natural way to continue to Yangzhou.
Shopping
The first of the three wonders and the souvenir everybody buys. A hundred and thirty years old, with the five qualities of colour, aroma, sourness, body and concentration. It dresses cold plates, glazes vegetables, cooks fish, stews chicken — and it keeps improving the longer it is stored, forever.
The city's best-known craft object: fine white marble cut into sheets, polished into shapes, painted with landscapes, beauties, birds, flowers and fish, then mounted on a hard wood stand. Restrained, pale and old-fashioned, and it does make a room look expensive.
Exported to the capital in the Guangxu years and listed as imperial tribute. It has five characteristics — sour, sweet, bitter, pungent and mellow — and is deep yellow, fragrant, high in sugar and low in alcohol. Locals describe it as warming the stomach and moving the blood.
The other local drink, sealed and aged in the jar. Sweet, heavy and low in strength, and a better souvenir than a bottle of something you can buy anywhere.
The traditional festive craft of the city, and the souvenir that looks like what it is — a paper lantern made properly, painted and wired, that packs flat and hangs up easily.
Zhongshan East Road is the main commercial street, with the Babaiban department store, Parkson, the Zhenjiang commercial building and an RT-Mart clustered around Dashikou. Xijin Ferry is where the restaurants, inns and craft shops are. For night bargaining, Nanmen Street is the busiest night market in the city, with clothes and household goods alongside the food.
Practical
Zhenjiang has no airport of its own, and the hills are strung out along the river. Plan the day by geography — Jinshan to Jiaoshan to Beigu to the ferry street runs in a line and costs almost nothing in buses.
| Best months | Spring and autumn. Spring and autumn are mild, the flowers and river produce are at their best, and most of the city's festivals fall in those windows |
|---|---|
| Key tickets | Jinshan ¥65 (about ¥60 booked ahead; ¥45 in the December–February low season); Jiaoshan ¥50 with the ferry; Beigu Hill ¥40 (¥30 Jan–Feb); Nanshan ¥30; Maoshan ¥70 with transport; Baohua Hill ¥50 |
| Free | Xijin Ferry street, Zhenjiang Museum, the Changjiang Road riverfront |
| Festival calendar | Baota Hill cherry blossom and the Baohua Hill magnolia festival in March–April, with the Maoshan incense fair; the Zhenjiang plum-and-cherry festival mid-April at Meiyin Garden; the Jiaoshan osmanthus festival 26 Sep–26 Oct; the Jiaoshan international calligraphy festival 18–20 Oct; the Jinshan New Year bell-ringing on 31 December from 21:00 |
| Maoshan incense season | From the 24th of the twelfth lunar month to the 18th of the third — three months, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. Buy incense at the mountain gate rather than from sellers at the ticket office |
| Getting around | Bus ¥1 under 15 km, ¥0.50 with a card, ¥0.50 more off a transfer within 30 minutes; taxi ¥8 for 3 km then ¥1.8 and ¥2.7; coach from Nanjing Lukou ¥55 |
| Useful numbers | Tourism bureau 0511-85232687 / 0511-85237773; taxi complaints 0511-84447222; Yangzhou ferry 0514-87317999 |
| Emergencies | Zhenjiang No.1 People's Hospital emergency 0511-5234387; Zhenjiang Hospital of TCM emergency 0511-88619093; postcode 212000 |
| Watch out | The museum closes on Mondays. The stair up Jinshan's Cishou pagoda is narrow, dark and crowded at weekends |
Tips
Jinshan, then bus 104 or 123 to Jiaoshan, then Beigu Hill, then Xijin Ferry for dinner. That order runs with the river and costs about ¥2 in buses. Doing them in any other order costs you an hour of backtracking.
It is free and worth an hour, and it is closed every Monday. Turning up on a Monday is the most common wasted journey in the city, and it is a ten-minute walk from Xijin Ferry, so pair them.
Pot-lid noodles and crystal pork are a morning institution: into a teahouse, a pot of strong tea, a plate of finely cut ginger, the pork dipped in vinegar. Do it once properly rather than having noodles for dinner.
Fares are ¥1 and half price on a card, with a further ¥0.50 off a transfer inside 30 minutes. Over two days of hill-hopping the card pays for itself, and you can get one at the Jinshan Park stop.
The stair is narrow, dimly lit and jammed on public holidays, with people going up and down the same way. Do it first thing, hold the rail, and do not take small children up at midday.
It is free, it is a completely different street once the lanterns are on, and every old house on it is a restaurant or an inn. Walk it at dusk, eat there, and walk back to the river afterwards.
Background
Zhenjiang sits in the south-centre of Jiangsu on the south bank of the lower Yangtze, at the point where the Yangtze and the Grand Canal — the golden cross of Chinese waterways — meet, with the Beijing–Shanghai railway running through it. The city covers 3,843 square kilometres and has around 2.69 million people across three districts and three counties. The climate is subtropical monsoon, close to that of Nanjing and Suzhou: four distinct seasons, a good deal of rain, hot summers, cold damp winters, and spring and autumn the comfortable times to be outside.
Two accounts of the name survive, and both are worth knowing. One says the low ground along the north bank of the river flooded so often that a lucky word was bolted onto the river's name as a charm against the water. The other says the Song rulers looked at the place — hills behind it, the Yangtze in front, the position formidably strong — and named it for the fact that it guards the crossing. Either way, the name has been in use for more than 800 years, and the sequence of older names behind it tells you what the place was: Yi, Zhufang, Dantu, Jingkou, Runzhou. Each change marks a period when it was a political centre and a prize.
Zhenjiang is one of the important birthplaces of Wu culture, with more than 3,000 years of recorded history, and it is a designated national historical and cultural city. It is the origin of the legend of Sweet Dew Temple and Liu Bei's marriage, and of the white snake flooding Jinshan. It is also where three of the great books of Chinese letters were written or compiled: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, the Selections of Refined Literature, and the Brush Talks from Dream Brook.
And it is where the poems came from. Where can I look for the lost heartland — the whole sweep of the land is Beigu Tower. If friends and kin in Luoyang should ask of me — a piece of ice-clear heart in a jade pot. I urge the lord of heaven to bestir himself and send down talent regardless of one mould. Every one of those lines was written here, and they are still recited.
The city is also a member of the Nanjing metropolitan circle, alongside Nanjing itself, Yangzhou, Huai'an, Ma'anshan, Wuhu and Chuzhou — seven cities in one commuting and economic region, which is why getting between them is so easy.
The four lines everybody knows were written by Zhang Hu, spending a night in a lodging house above the ferry: at the crossing by Jinling, a small hill tower; a traveller's night holds sorrow enough. The tide falls in the moonlit, slanting river; two or three sparks of light — that is Guazhou. The crossing had been there since the Tang and Song, and the street above it grew into the densest collection of monuments in the city.
Two things about the religious calendar are worth planning around. Maoshan's incense season runs from the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month to the 18th of the third — three months during which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come up the mountain, the incense never stops and the bells never stop. The season has its own programme: closing the fast, opening the mountain, seeing the new year in with the three Mao brothers, going up in devotion, coming down to ask for blessing, and closing the mountain.
At the other end of the year, the bell-ringing at Jinshan on New Year's Eve goes back to the Tang, and the sound has not stopped for more than a thousand years. Upwards of ten thousand people come: night visiting in the park, folk performances, a fair, and then queuing in turn to swing the wooden beam against the bell, pray for peace, and eat at the Foyinju vegetarian house afterwards.
Travel with them
Chinese television classic
The series that swept the Chinese-speaking world, telling the love story of the white snake and Xu Xian. The episode everyone remembers — flooding Jinshan — is set at Jinshan Temple in Zhenjiang, and the theme song, Waiting a Thousand Years for One Return, is one of the best-known songs in the language. Watch an episode before you climb the hill and the temple reads differently.
Luo Guanzhong (14th century)
One of the four classic novels, and the episode of Liu Bei's marriage at Sweet Dew Temple is set on Beigu Hill in Zhenjiang. The temple is still there, small and famous, and the hill is laid out around that story — the sword-testing stone, the Cruel Stone, the horse-walking ravine.
Gong Linna, written and composed by Robert Zollitsch
Written for the 2013 new year because it was the year of the snake; Zollitsch is obsessed with the White Snake love story and wanted a folk song that was not solemn. It looks simple and is not — and on release it caused the Fahai affair, with Buddhist groups protesting that it mocked their faith. Still the fastest way to understand how alive the Jinshan legend is.
The questions visitors ask us most about Zhenjiang, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Two. Day one is the three hills and a crossing — Jinshan in the morning, Jiaoshan after lunch, Beigu Hill late afternoon, Xijin Ferry at dusk. Day two is Nanshan, the museum and the riverfront. A third day buys Maoshan or Baohua Hill; a fourth is best spent crossing to Yangzhou on the car ferry.
Jinshan if you only have one — the temple wrapping the hill is the image of the city, and the White Snake legend is attached to it. Jiaoshan second for the ferry ride and the cliff carvings. Beigu Hill is the smallest and the most literary, and it is the one to do in the late afternoon when the light is down the river.
Vinegar that does not spoil, pork jelly that is not treated as a dish, and a noodle pot with a lid floating in it. The vinegar improves the longer it is kept and never turns; the pork is eaten at dawn with tea, ginger and vinegar, which is what not-a-dish means; and the little lid keeps the broth from boiling over while letting it breathe.
No. Fly to Nanjing Lukou, Sunan Shuofang at Wuxi or Changzhou Benniu, and take the direct coach from Lukou for ¥55. By rail, Zhenjiang station serves the Shanghai–Nanjing line with high-speed trains from the south square, and Zhenjiang South on the Beijing–Shanghai line is about an hour from Shanghai and five hours from Beijing.
Spring and autumn, which is when the city's festivals run. In March and April the cherry blossom comes out at Baota Hill park, Baohua Hill holds its magnolia festival and Maoshan runs its incense-season fair; from 26 September to 26 October Jiaoshan's osmanthus garden — 160 mu, fifteen varieties, some 6,000 trees — is in flower for the osmanthus festival.
Pot-lid noodles for breakfast, crystal pork with ginger and vinegar, crab-roe soup dumplings, and river fish. The Jiangxian street at the foot of Jinshan is where the fish is — the three fish of Zhenjiang, plus deboned silver carp head. The biggest house on it is Jinshuiwan; Bishi Rong and Jinshan Fishery Village are the other two names.
The car ferry from Guazhou carries foot passengers across the Yangtze, and although the Runyang bridge is quicker the ferry is the better memory — 0514-87317999 for times. It is a short hop, and the local four-day itineraries run Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou and Suzhou as one loop.
Yes, everywhere. You will hear Zhenjiang dialect, which is a mixture of northern Mandarin, Wu speech and Yangzhou speech and is genuinely difficult for outsiders, but nobody expects a visitor to follow it. Speak Mandarin and it will be fine.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
City guide · 12 tours
A subtropical island city of temples, fishing-village lanes and the best street food in Fujian — with the car-free islet of Gulangyu a 20-minute ferry away.
Gulangyu
City guide · 12 tours
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,200-year-old capital of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-city, where the Ming lanes of Sanfang Qixiang meet the dockyard that built China's modern navy.
Lugu Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,680 m lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border, home to China's last matrilineal people, pig-trough canoes and a great deal of doing nothing.
Xishuangbanna
City guide · 12 tours
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Shangri-La
City guide · 12 tours
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Nanchang
City guide · 12 tours
Jiangxi's 'hero city' on the Gan River — one great Tang pavilion, a 160-metre Ferris wheel, and the best claypot soup you will eat in China.
Hefei
City guide · 12 tours
Anhui's 2,000-year-old capital: the hometown of China's model judge, a moat-turned-garden ring, and the fast rail gateway to Huangshan.
Hongcun
City guide · 12 tours
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
City guide · 12 tours
Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
City guide · 12 tours
Hunan's loud, young capital: a 3,000-year-old city that eats chilli-hot food, stays up all night and treats foot massage as a civic duty.
Fenghuang Ancient Town
City guide · 12 tours
The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
City guide · 12 tours
A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
City guide · 12 tours
China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
City guide · 12 tours
The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
City guide · 12 tours
Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
City guide · 12 tours
Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
City guide · 12 tours
A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
City guide · 12 tours
A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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